This phrasebook covers the dialects of Spanish spoken in Latin America. For a phrasebook specifically about the Spanish dialect spoken in Spain, see Castilian Spanish phrasebook

Regions with Spanish as an official language. They are mostly concentrated in Europe and the Americas.

Spanish (español), also known as Castilian (castellano), is the third most-spoken language in the world (after Mandarin Chinese and English), with around 500 million speakers. Originating in Spain and spoken by most residents there, it has slightly different pronunciations from the rest of the world's Spanish speakers, as well as a few vocabulary differences. It is also widely spoken in the British territory of Gibraltar, where almost all locals are bilingual in English and Spanish.

In the Caribbean, Spanish is spoken in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. Spanish is also a first language for many people in the United States, especially in California, Texas, South Florida, and elsewhere in the Southwest—it is a co-official language of New Mexico, and many government offices in major American cities provide services in Spanish in addition to English. There are around 50 million Spanish speakers (including native and second language speakers) in the U.S., making it the country with the second-highest Spanish-speaking population in the world after Mexico. Additionally, Spanish is an official language in the African country of Equatorial Guinea.

A Western Romance language, Spanish is closely related to and somewhat mutually intelligible with the other Romance languages, such as Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian. English and Spanish share variants of approximately one third of their words (via Latin), although the pronunciation and writing style tend to be very different.

Spanish nouns come in two genders, feminine and masculine. Grammatical gender is not related to biological sex, so unlike English, even inanimate objects are assigned a gender (e.g. silla [chair] is feminine; libro [book] is masculine). The article before the noun depends on the gender and number: the definite article (which in English is the) is la for singular feminine nouns, el for singular masculine nouns, las for plural feminine nouns, and los for plural masculine nouns. The grammatical gender of nouns referring to people generally follow their sex, but there are nouns which remain of the same gender regardless of the sex of the person they are referring to (e.g. persona [person] is feminine even if referring to a male person). While this may sound confusing or disorientating to English speakers at first, the system can be understood quickly. Most nouns that end in -o are masculine, and most nouns that end in -a are feminine. Most nouns ending in consonants are also masculine, with some notable exceptions. For instance, every noun ending in -ción (e.g. información [information], nación [nation]) is feminine. If you make a gender-based mistake (e.g. saying el mesa rather than la mesa [the table]), Spanish speakers will still understand you, although you may be corrected. There are some common words which break these conventions (e.g. la mano [the hand]) or which can even take either gender of article (e.g. la/el mar [the sea]).

The Spanish verb tense system is fairly similar to English, but all six person/number combinations take different endings in the indicative. The formal "you" (usted in singular, ustedes in plural) takes a third-person verb. Adjectives must match the gender and number of the noun they're describing, so a man says encantado and a woman says encantada for "delighted". Adjectives always inflect to match the gender and plurality, even if the noun has the "wrong"-looking ending; for example, "clean hands" is manos limpias, even though mano ends in an -o. The indirect object and the animate direct object are both marked by a.

Spanish spelling has the pleasant characteristic of being very phonetic, with only a few clearly-defined exceptions. This means that if you know how to pronounce the letters of a word, it's relatively easy to sound out the word itself. Although Spanish has loan words that have been acquired from a variety of other languages, it is nothing like the hodge-podge that is English, with wildly unpredictable spelling, etymology, and grammatical rules which cannot be relied upon. Spanish also has a much stronger tendency to "localize" loanwords than English, which means spelling, pronunciation or both will be changed to better fit the logic of the Spanish language, resulting in words like "beisbol".

Besides having a very small number of vowel sounds and a high predictability of exactly what sound is represented by each letter, Spanish has a very clear set of rules about where a stress normally falls, and exceptions are noted with an "acute accent mark" (´) over the vowel of the stressed syllable. Normally, words that end in a vowel, or in n or s, have the stress on the next-to-last syllable (muchacho = "mu-CHA-cho"); all other words without an explicit accent mark are stressed on the final syllable (hospital = "os-pee-TAL"). There are no secondary stresses within words.

The vowels in Spanish are short crisp sounds. They are not dragged out like some English vowels. Note that Spanish makes no distinction between "long" and "short" vowels and Spanish-speakers are unlikely to even hear a difference. There is however a distinction between stressed and unstressed.

a

like 'a' in "father"

e

like 'ay' in "pay" or 'ai' in "hail" when stressed; may take on more of a 'e' in "pet" sound when unstressed

i

like 'ee' in "see"

o

like 'o' in "open"

u

like 'u' in "rule"

y

like 'ee' in "see". Very rarely used at the middle or ending of words. Like "y" in young at the beginning of words.

like 'b' in "bed" (but no aspiration) at the beginning of a word and after 'm': boca (mouth). A soft vibration sound almost like English 'v' elsewhere, specifically a 'v' sound but with your two lips pressed together in a 'b' or 'p' shape with the airflow of a 'v'. See v below.

c

follows the same pronunciation pattern as in English. In most cases it is pronounced like 'k' in "kid": calle (street). When followed by 'e' or 'i', it is like 's' in "supper" (in the Americas, the Canaries and some parts of the Philippines) or 'th' in "thin" (Spain): cine (cinema, pronounced by Latin Americans as SEE-nay, Spaniards as THEE-nay)

ch

like 'ch' in "touch": muchacho (boy) [tʃ]

d

like 'd' in "dog": de (of/from). In some dialects, a 'd' between two vowels is pronounced with a bit of softness, halfway between the normal 'd' and the 'th' in "the": pasado (the adjective or noun past). You're usually fine just using the 'd' sound.

f

like 'f' in "fine": faro (lighthouse)

g

when followed by 'e' or 'i', like a throaty 'h' (general = heh-neh-RAHL, meaning general), otherwise like 'g' in "go" (gato, cat). In the clusters "gue" and "gui", the 'u' serves only to change the sound of the consonant and is silent (guitarra, guitar), unless it bears a diaeresis, as in "güe" and "güi" (pedigüeño, beggar). In between vowels, it tends to be weakened to a softer sound, [ɣ].

h

silent: hora= OR-ah (hour). Pronounced like a softer 'j' only in foreign words.

j

like a throaty 'h' in "ha": jamón (ham), the sound of Scottish or German "ch" as in "Loch" is close [x]

k

like 'k' in "kid": kilo The letter K is only used in foreign words (kárate, kilo, Kiev, etc.).

l

like 'l' in "love": lápiz (pencil; note that this is an example of an accented word)

ll

like 'y' in "year"; pronounced like a Zh as in 'Zhivago' [ʒ] only in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay: llamar (to call). In at least some parts of Costa Rica and Colombia, pronounced as the English "j" or "g," as in the words "ginger" or "ninja". Also pronounced like 'ly' [ʎ] as in the English word "million" in northern Spain and in the Philippines.

m

like 'm' in "mother": mano (hand, a rare example of a word whose grammatical gender breaks the rules outlined above—"la mano" is correct)

n

like 'n' in "nice", and like 'n' in "anchor": noche (night), ancla (anchor)

ñ

like 'ny' in "canyon": cañón (canyon) [ɳ], piñata. This is a separate letter in the Spanish alphabet which was initially written as "nn" (cf. with the entries on "ll" and "rr"). Pronouncing this as "n" will usually be intelligible but can sometimes make an entirely separate word. For instance, año is "year" but ano is "anus"—you'll want to avoid saying that you have 33 anuses when you mean to say that you're 33 years old.

p

like 'p' in "pig": perro (dog)

q

like 'q' in "quiche" (always with a silent "u"): queso, pronounced KAY-so (cheese)

r, rr

Spanish has two 'r' sounds, both of which are different from their counterpart in English. Some effort should be made to approximate each of them, to help listeners distinguish between perro ("dog") and pero ("but") — or perhaps to understand you at all:

single r: This sound is created by putting the tip of the tongue up against where the front of the roof of the mouth meets the upper teeth, very similar to the action English speakers make to pronounce l or d. To an English-speaking ear, it may sound a bit like a combined "d-r". Take care to pronounce r separately when it follows a consonant; a blended English tr will not be recognized in the Spanish word otro ("other"), which should be pronounced more like "OHT-roh". Try to avoid the common pitfall to distinguish the words by the vowel: There is no difference in the e sound of pero and perro and Spanish native speakers won't hear any if you try to make one.

rolled r: Written "r" at the beginning of the word, or "rr" between vowels (cerro, hundred). It's a multiply vibrating sound. Whereas most English speakers can learn to tap out a single r, many adults learning Spanish find this sound impossible to produce; in this case, pronouncing it like a Spanish r or fumbling out a d-r will be better understood than pronouncing it like a long English r.

s

like 's' in "son": sopa (soup); in Spain, it is often pronounced like a soft, palatised "sh" at the end of a word or syllable.

t

like 't' in "top": tapa (top)

v

like 'b' in "bed" (but no aspiration) at the beginning of a word and after 'm': vaca (cow), pronounced BAH-kah. A soft vibration sound almost like English 'v' elsewhere, specifically a 'v' sound but with your two lips pressed together in a 'b' or 'p' shape with the airflow of a 'v'. To distinguish v from b when spelling, one says "vay chica" or "bay grande" to indicate which; native Spanish speakers may not hear the difference between "vee" and "bee". But some Spanish-speaking countries do say the 'v' as in "vine" with the teeth on the lower lip.

w

like 'w' in "weight" in English words, whisky, (pronounced "WEESS-kee"). Like 'b' in "bed" in Germanic words. This letter is never used in native Spanish words and you can live your entire life in an Hispanic country and never hear it outside of the word "whisky".

x

like 'x' in "flexible" (flexible). Like 'ss' in "hiss" at beginning of a word (xilófono, xylophone). Like a throaty 'h' in the words México, mexicano, Oaxaca, and oaxaqueño. Often found in words of indigenous American origin where it may not follow Spanish pronunciation logic.

y

like 'y' in "yes": payaso (clown). Like 'y' in "boy": hoy (now). Pronounced like a Zh [ʒ] ONLY in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay as in 'Zhivago', : yo no sé (I don't know), pronounced "zhoh noh say".

z

like 's' in "supper" (Latin America, parts of Spain), like 'th' in "thin" (most of Spain)[θ]: zorro (fox). See c above.

Similarities in pronunciation between b/p/v and c/z can be difficult for gringos (English speakers). Many Spanish speakers are familiar with Anglo cultures, particularly in Mexico and Spain, where they interact with English-speakers on a regular basis, so they may have more familiarity with our inability to pronounce their words as they do. If you are visiting remote villages in the Andes, Hispanics there will be less likely to decode mispronunciations.

Note: Latin American pronunciation is shown here. Pronunciation in Spain is a bit different. Good pronunciation cannot be represented by letters of the alphabet. If you pronounce these phrases as shown here, your amused listeners will probably understand you, but after listening to their pronunciation for a while, you can ignore what we have suggested here.

In general, the Spanish numbering system is fairly straightforward. For numbers from 21–29, the "e" from "veinte" is substituted with an "i", and the ordinal number is added to the back. For numbers from 31–99, the tens and ones are separated by "y" (eg. 31: treinta y uno; 99: noventa y nueve). Note the "y" is not used to separate the hundreds from the tens, or the thousands from the hundreds. From 200 onwards, the hundreds are named by using the ordinal number + cientos (eg: 200: doscientos), but the numbers 500, 700 and 900 are exceptions to this rule and must be memorised. Naming of the thousands is straightforward, with ordinal number + mil. From the millions onwards, note that the plural for is used for numbers above 1,000,000. Also note that unlike English, Spanish uses the long scale. Therefore, un billón and un trillón is not the same as the English "one billion" and "one trillion".

Note that counting in "hundreds" is unheard of for numbers larger than 1 000. This is also true for years. Instead of "nineteen hundred fifty three" a Spanish speaker would say "mil novecientos cincuenta y tres".

When speaking, times are given in AM/PM form (but saying de la mañana (morning), de la tarde (afternoon), de la noche (evening/night) or de la madrugada (late night) to distinguish between AM and PM. Rarely do Spanish speakers use the 24-hour system in conversation. On the other hand, in most countries, times are rendered in 24-hour format (as in Britain), with a colon separating hours and minutes:

Dates are given in day-month-year form. All spoken and written, long and short forms follow this pattern:

7 May 2003

7 de mayo de 2003

23 October 1997

23 de octubre de 1997

Unlike in English numbers of years are always pronounced as normal numbers (i.e. in thousands, not hundreds) thus it is "mil novecientos noventa y dos" not "diecinuevecientos noventa y dos" as the literal translation from English would suggest. Counting in hundreds in general is not used once numbers get to 1000.

Day–month constructions (4 de julio, for example) are not usually abbreviated. In the rare cases that an abbreviation is used, the number of the month is not used, but its initial letter is. Usual examples are:

23-F

23 de febrero, date of a failed coup d'état in Spain (1981)

11-S

11 de septiembre, date of the attack to the Twin Towers (2001) (and of the Chilean coup in 1973).

agua gaseosa (AH-gwah gah-say-OH-sah) (if you say agua, if you ask at the bar, it will be tap water (for free), at the table it is normally bottled); Agua mineral (AH-gwah mee-neh-RAHL) is bottled mineral water.

¡camarero! (kah-mah-REH-roh) (Spain), ¡mesero! (meh-SEH-roh) (Latin America), ¡mozo! (MOH-zoh) (Argentina) in some places (e.g. Nicaragua) you may simply whistle or make a sssss ssssss sound to get the attention of a waitress/waiter

I'm finished.

He acabado, terminé (heh ah-kah-BAH-doh, tehr-mee-NEH) (The first phrase can refer to the finishing of a completely unrelated physiological activity)

Una jarra de cerveza (normally it will be half a liter, not really a pint); In Chile or Argentina un schop might be anywhere from 300mL to one litre; in Spain the most common is una caña which is 200mL in a tube glass; you can also ask for un quinto (200mL bottle) or un tercio (330mL bottle)

A glass of draft beer

Un schop (oon SHOHP) (Chile and Argentina) / Una cerveza de barril (OO-nah sehr-BEH-sah deh bahr-REEL) (Mexico); in Spain you can ask for Cerveza negra, not very common in spanish Bares, but easy to find in Pubs (Pub=small club where just drinks are served).

¡Salud! (sah-LOOD) (literally this means "health" and may also be said after someone sneezes. Occasionally, one might say ¡Salud, pesetas, y amor! [sah-LOOD, pay-SAY-tuhz, ee uh-MOR] or "health, wealth, and love".)